Pulitzer Prize a big win for UCSD’s Armantrout

Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout of San Diego says that because many of the poems in her book “Versed” deal with mortality, that may have created more an “entry point” for readers. Armantrout has openly discussed her struggles with cancer.
— John R. McCutchen / Union-Tribune

Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout of San Diego says that because many of the poems in her book “Versed” deal with mortality, that may have created more an “entry point” for readers. Armantrout has openly discussed her struggles with cancer.
— John R. McCutchen / Union-Tribune

Rae Armantrout, who has been on the faculty of the University of California San Diego for two decades, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category for her most recent book, “Versed.”

“I’m delighted and amazed at how much media recognition that the Pulitzer brings, as compared to even the National Book Critics Award, which I was also surprised and delighted to win,” said Armantrout, who spoke Monday by telephone from her home in Normal Heights.

“For a long time, my writing has been just below the media radar, and to have this kind of attention, suddenly, with my 10th book, is really surprising.”

She is a native Californian who was born in Vallejo in 1947 and grew up in San Diego. Armantrout received her bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley, where she studied with noted poet Denise Levertov, and her master’s in creative writing from San Francisco State University.

She emerged as part of the first generation of Language Poets, a group that also included Jackson Mac Low and Fanny Howe (who is a professor emeritus at UCSD), among several others.

In March, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for “Versed.”

“This book has gotten more attention,” Armantrout said, “but I don’t feel as if it’s better.”

Because a lot of the poems deal with mortality, she said, that may have created more an “entry point” for readers. Armantrout has openly discussed her struggles with cancer.

“Versed,” published by the Wesleyan University Press, did appear in a larger printing than her earlier works, which is about 2,700 in hardcover. It’s scheduled to appear in paperback in May.

“But I wouldn’t be surprised if they rush that now,” she said.

Among UCSD faculty, composer Roger Reynolds won a Pulitzer in 1989 for his composition “Whispers Out of Time.”